This invention relates generally to a system for managing the delivery of print media to a marking engine in a printing system and, more particularly to a system for executing a print job in which an ordered stock profile is used to control the accessing of multiple print media trays for the sake of producing multiple ordered stock sets for the print job.
Future electronic printers and printing systems are intended to provide the operator or user with as many job programming options and selections as reasonably possible. One very significant programming option is choice of stock, i.e. the print media on which the prints are made. One desirable stock type is ordered stock such as precut tabs, a series of different color sheets, etc. However, when using ordered stock, care must be taken to assure that the correct image is printed on the correct stock throughout the print process. For example, when using precut tabs, one must be sure that the image being printed matches up with the correct tab and that this remains so during the entire printing process. Otherwise, should there be for some reason a mismatch during the printing process, not only will the affected image end up printed on the wrong tab, but the entire sequence of images printed thereafter will be disrupted with the remaining images on the wrong tabs.
In the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,102 to Motomura et al discloses a system for counting paper in a copying apparatus in which the number of copies are entered using a keyboard to program a counter, the counter being decremented with each copy made so there is provided a running count that can be used to identify the number of copies to be replaced in the event of a fault. U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,572 to Pou et al discloses a system for printing tags, with a jam detector to detect jams and record any tags lost as a result of a jam. U.S. Pat. No. 4,568,172 to Acquaviva discloses a document set recirculating method for small numbers of documents with separation between sets automatically controlled in response to the number of document sheets in the sets. U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,544 to Tsuchiya et al discloses a counter for an image forming apparatus for counting and managing data forming operations in which an EEPROM is used as a data store when power is interrupted. And U.S. Pat. No. 3,886,329 to Kamiyama discloses a counter apparatus, preset with the number of sheets to be copied, that generates a control signal when the number of copies made is equal to the preset number of sheets to be copied.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,133,048 discloses an approach for printing ordered stock with a high speed electronic printing system in which a selected number of one or more sheets is purged to insure that prints are produced in a correct sequence. More particularly, in accordance with the approach, a group of prints, including plural sets, is preprogrammed so that each set equals a sequence or modulus number (M). The number of prints to be produced for the group is determined and the number of prints to be produced is divided by M. If a remainder (R) exists as a result of such dividing, then (M-R) sheets are purged after the prints corresponding with the plural sets and the one or more prints corresponding with R have been produced.
The '048 Patent further discloses that in the event of a paper jam, the concepts underlying the above approach can be employed to purge sheets so that a correct sequence in the printing of the ordered stock can be maintained. More particularly, a purge number representative of the number of sheets to be purged from a paper path, in the event of a jam in the paper path, is determined. In response to a jam in the paper path, sheets are purged from the paper path and the purge number is employed to determine the number of ordered stock sheets which must be referred for the sake of replacing the purged sheets.
While the technique of the '048 Patent is well suited for its intended purpose, namely to control the printing of ordered stock in an electronic printing system, such technique may not always be optimal in the processing of relatively large jobs. More particularly, as contemplated by the '048 Patent, a single tray is loaded with multiple ordered stock in a collated fashion. This is not necessarily a significant impediment provided a system user responsible for loading the single tray can obtain precollated sets of the ordered stock types, such as precollated tab cut sheet sets. Nonetheless, when processing multiple ordered stock sets, synchronization of images and ordered stock must be maintained and, when processing multiple ordered stock sets from a single tray, it has been found that a number of sheets equaling the modulus or sequence number (M) must be purged from the single tray whenever a jam occurs relative to the printing stock in that single tray.
It is been found, by the present inventor, that the need to purge multiple ordered stock sheets can be greatly alleviated or eliminated by printing M discrete or constituent stock types from multiple trays. While, as demonstrated by U.S. Pat. No. 5,081,595 to Moreno et al and U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,389 to Dumas et al., it is known to print a job by accessing multiple trays, it is not believed that this approach of accessing multiple trays has been used to enhance the area of ordered stock production. It would be desirable to provide a system for managing the feeding of multiple constituent stocks from multiple print media trays in a manner which emulates printing with ordered stock and, in the event of a sheet jam, either alleviates or eliminates the need to purge multiple ordered stock sheets from the system.
The present invention is particularly suited for use in a network environment, such as in the context of the world wide web, the internet or the like. Examples of some recent patents relating to network environments of plural remote terminal shared users of networked printers include Xerox Corporation U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,483,653, 5,243,518, 5,226,112, 5,170,340 and 5,287,194. Some patents on this subject by others include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,113,355, 5,113,494 (originally filed Feb. 27, 1987), U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,181,162, 5,220,674, 5,247,670; 4,953,080 and 4,821,107. Further by way of background, some of the following Xerox.RTM. Corporation U.S. patents also include examples of networked systems with printers: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,153,577; 5,113,517; 5,072,412; 5,065,347; 5,008,853; 4,947,345; 4,939,507; 4,937,036; 4,920,481; 4,914,586; 4,899,136; 4,453,128; 4,063,220; 4,099,024; 3,958,088; 3,920,895; and 3,597,071. Also noted are IBM Corp. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,651,278 and 4,623,244, as well as Canon U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,458 and Jap. Pub. No. 59-63872 published Nov. 4, 1984. Some of these various above patents also disclose multi-functional printing systems.
Some other network system related publications include "Xerox Office Systems Technology" "Xerox 8000 Series Products: Workstations, Services, Ethernet, and Software Development" .COPYRGT.1982, 1984 by Xerox Corporation, OSD-R8203A, Ed. T. Linden and E. Harslem, with a "Table of Contents" citing its numerous prior publications sources, and an Abstract noting the April 1981 announcement of "the 8110 Star Informations System, A New Personal Computer . . ."; "Xerox System Integration Standard Printing Protocol XSIS 118404", April 1984; "Xerox Integrated Production Publishers Solutions: "Booklet No. "610P50807" "11/85"; "Printing Protocol-Xerox System Integration Standard" .COPYRGT.1990 by Xerox Corporation, XNSS 119005 May 1990; "Xerox Network Systems Architecture", "General Information Manual", XNSG 068504 April 1985, with an extensive annotated bibliography, .COPYRGT.1985 by Xerox Corporation; "Interpress: The Source Book", Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1988, by Harrington, S. J. and Buckley, R. R.; Adobe Systems Incorporated "PostScript" Language Reference Manual", Addison-Wesley Co., 1990; "Mastering Novell" Netware.RTM.", 1990, SYBEX, Inc., Alameda, Calif., by Cheryl E. Currid and Craig A. Gillett; "Palladium Print System" .COPYRGT.MIT 1984, et sec; "Athena85" "Computing in Higher Education: The Athena Experience", E. Balkovich, et al, Communications of the ACM, 28(11) pp. 1214-1224, November, 1985; and "Apollo87 The Network Computing Architecture and System: An Environment for Developing Distributed Applications", T. H. Dineen, et al, Usenix Conference Proceedings, June 1987.
Noted regarding commercial network systems with printers and software therefor is the 1992 Xerox Corporation "Network Publisher" version of the 1990 "DocuTech.RTM. publishing system, including the "Network Server" to customer's Novell.RTM. 3.11 networks, supporting various different network protocols and "Ethernet"; and the Interpress Electronic Printing Standard, Version 3.0, Xerox System Integration Standard XNSS 048601 (January 1986). Also, the much earlier Xerox Corporation "9700 Electronic printing System"; the "VP Local Laser Printing" software application package, which, together with the Xerox "4045" or other Laser Copier/Printer, the "6085" "Professional Computer System" using Xerox Corporation "ViewPoint" or "GlobalView.RTM." software and a "local printer [print service] Option" kit, comprises the "Documenter" system. The even earlier Xerox Corporation "8000" "Xerox Network Services Product Descriptions" further describe other earlier Xerox Corporation electronic document printing systems. Eastman Kodak "LionHeart.RTM." systems, first announced Sep. 13, 1990, are also noted.
Current popular commercial published "systems software" with LAN workstation connections include Novell DOS 7.0, "Windows.RTM." NT 3.1, and IBM OS/2 Version 2.1.
All of the references designated in the above Background section are incorporated herein by reference.